Fight the New Drug (00:59)
Well, Suamhirs, thank you so much for joining me today on the Consider Before Consuming podcast. For our listeners, can we start by having you introduce yourself and the work that you do?

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (01:13)
Natale, thank you so much for inviting me and for having this difficult conversation at a very difficult time or perhaps at a very needed time as we’re going to transition periods as a society. Well, I am a behavioral neurologist and clinical psychologist or combined that I’ve recently just completed my doctorate at Seattle University where I completed my PhD process. For the last, wow, 20 years, I have worked directly with victims of human trafficking, anywhere from providing direct services to survivors, or overseeing programming, management of programming, directorship, and so much more. And during this whole time, I was going to school as I continued to just equip myself with more tools so that I can be the best provider I can be for survivors.

I am also a father, I’m a community member. So I’m excited to be with you and having this conversation.

Fight the New Drug (02:19)
Well, thank you so much for the work that you have done. really excited to get to talk about it with you and share with our listeners. And also congratulations on your completion of your program recently.

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (02:30)
Thank you, thank you.

Fight the New Drug (02:31)
Can you share a bit about your story from childhood and how that led you to the work that you’re doing today?

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (02:38)
Thank you. Yes. You know, I also reflected on my story to get prepared for the show. really, it took me time to kind of go back there for a moment. It’s been interesting, you know, right now with everything going on immigrants and being an immigrant myself, going back to some of those aspects that made me a victim of human trafficking. It kind of was, it was difficult to reprocess them, but I had the right tools and the right people around me.

So that was great. So I was born in Honduras, Natale. was born in Honduras. I was raised in Honduras. But my biological parents are not from Honduras. My mother is Turkish. My father is Saudi Arabian. So they met in the 80s in Honduras doing, they’re both medical professionals and they were on Honduras doing their dissertation process and kind of their whole whole medical process to become a doctor in their own countries. But they got married several years later and unfortunately that just brought different challenges with that because in Turkey they couldn’t be there because that was haram for their culture and then they went back to Saudi Arabia and it just became a really difficult time. But then they went back to Honduras and I was born in Honduras in 1990.

You know, I remember my childhood being a kind of a mix of Latin culture and also that Arabic-Persian kind of lifestyle that has been interesting for me to adapt to and from. So it’s been interesting to kind of just think about that life because it was a really perfect combination of those two cultures.

I spoke Spanish, my first language at home was Arabic, and of course we were going to school in Honduras so I spoke Spanish. So there was this really interesting connection. And I say all this because my life, it just kind of, all of the sudden, life just became very difficult. My father, while he was a man who had education and perhaps a really good job, he was very violent. And behind closed doors, he was a man who what hit my mother, hit me. I can focus on one last card that he made in August 10th, 1999. That was the last day that I saw my father and he tried to cut my eye out. So he grabbed a kitchen knife and took it across my eye. He believed that I didn’t have his eye color, so therefore I wasn’t his son. I don’t know what made him stop.

But he stopped and he just left. He left our family. I left my mom, left her with four kids. But unfortunately, he had hit her so much in her lower back before he cut my eye to the point where he left my mother in a wheelchair. And she needed to have a surgery to go back to replace the disc on her lower back that were broken or damaged.

You know, so I at that time I was born into a culture that I was the oldest and the family therefore it was my responsibility to take care of my family. So I start working, I started doing whatever I could to survive anywhere from you know, doing taking groceries at the store or cleaning yards, selling items door by door and unfortunately that’s where I experienced my first violent act and was the first time that I encountered a sexual assault. At that time I was selling items door by door. I was 12 years old and one day I knocked on the wrong door. It was a very troubled time because my father had just left three years ago. I was trying to pick up my family again. So to have something hurt me this much.

I didn’t have that time. So I remember going back home. I was lucky enough not to end up dead, as any other kid in my community would have end up if they had experienced something similar like me. So I went back home and I just took a shower. I went to sleep. And next morning I woke up again, like I did every other day, 5 a.m. in the morning.

I made breakfast, lunch and dinner, left it in the fridge for my brother to heat it up while I worked at school. It was just the next day for me. So I didn’t have the time to process the first assault in my life and the first moment. So just continued working. But at that time, I just got a job at a pizza place, at a pizza restaurant. And it felt better, right? I felt that you have more people, so there’s more protection.

And there feels more enclosed so nothing can happen to you because there’s all of us around. And I love pizza, so it was this really good combination.

Fight the New Drug (07:44)
Right.

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (07:55)
January 2004, I went to work just like any other day. I had turned 14 years old. Kind of life was better because I was in this better environment to work in. And unfortunately, that day I met who would have become my trafficker. These two men came into my restaurant, came into the restaurant, they sat down, they ate, and about two hours later they left. They left me 100 lempiras. 100 lempiras, it’s not much, it’s equivalent to maybe five, $10, but at that time it was a lot of money. I could feed my family for a whole week with that much money. So I remember being very happy with that, but then around 11.30, midnight that night, it was time for me to go home.

Fight the New Drug (08:41)
Right.

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (08:49)
I started walking towards the bus stop, place where I took the bus to go home. And these two men came, they just started walking next to me again. And I realized it was the men who I had served at the restaurant. They started, at first it was like, hey, like, you know, a really good restaurant around here, do you know a bar or something? There was a lot of that in the area. So I thought maybe that was just asking me good questions.

But then all of the sudden they started asking me sexual questions about my body parts, about who I was, and then my spidey sense went on. I knew something was wrong, I started walking faster. The next thing I know I had a wet tissue over my mouth and I had what I felt like it was a knife in my side. And then to today I have a scar where they punctured through my skin as they were trying to, as they were trying to get me into a van. And that was it. I remember much of what happened. I remember waking up several times. I had what I was an IV in my right arm. And that was how I was sedated. And it is difficult because not every, you know, to be trafficking doesn’t have to have all of these very complex ways that they brought me here with, right? But, there’s, so to be a trafficking doesn’t have to be, doesn’t require this much elaboration. But in that moment, you know, these folks were the people who brought me from Honduras through Mexico to Guatemala and all the way down to San Diego, California. And I remember going through the border, they,

Fight the New Drug (10:17)
Right.

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (10:42)
I felt sedated. felt like I couldn’t talk. I felt like I couldn’t move. I was drooling. It’s like seeing myself from a third person and seeing my body. And that’s how they crossed the border. They told the border official that I was sick and that I had a person with developmental disabilities in Spanish. And that’s how they got me through the border. And then I passed out again and woke up because a man and a woman were taking take off all my clothes and they were looking at all my body parts. Again, I felt like it was a meat. I felt like it was something that to buy. And then I realized at that very moment that something was very wrong. I had that wet tissue over my mouth, side of the nose again. And every time they moved me, they would put that tissue and later on we find out there was chloroform and other sedated that can be applied through the nose.

Fight the New Drug (11:37)
Right.

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (11:42)
And finally they took me to the house in San Diego, in a very busy street, know, Home Avenue in San Diego and Maple Street are the police department is just two miles away. All of the university, the local state system is just five miles away. So there’s this whole system that was set up in the community to protect me.

Yet it felt through them that I was a kid that were brought to their community and for six months exploited. It didn’t took long to know what they wanted from me. Man, woman came into the room and they all were there to abuse of a child. At first, I didn’t fight it. They would give me three plates of food a day, and they will give me Viagra and other forms of drugs to keep me sedated. They told me that taking the drugs would help me not feel the pain in the drugs. And they gave me Viagra so that I was always sexually active. And to today, that has affected my heart terribly. As a now 30-some year old man who’s looking to establish his life. As I went through these, I started fighting. I didn’t want to take the drugs. So then they started to give me one plate of food a day and they will mix the food, the drugs on top of the food. So it just, you know, I had to survive. I had to keep there. what was really difficult to absorb is that they told me that my mom and my three brothers, uh, that they knew who they were. They named them each of them first and last name. And they told me that I, if I wanted them to leave, I had to, I had to continue. had to let them do what they’re, whatever they asked me to do.

And that was very deep because, you know, for the last three years, my family, I have been their bread maker. I have been the person who brings their money. I have to bring the person who has kept them alive. And now again, I’m told that the way to keep them alive is to let my body be hurt. So.

Fight the New Drug (13:49)
Right.

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (13:56)
It was something, it was really a lot of that process of understanding myself. After a long time, I realized that they were going to, I was going to die at some point. So I decided to start cutting myself. It was something that I found that that was the only way to snap out of my body and go into some other space, and July 27, 2000, 2004, about six months after I went missing, I had, a man had came into the, to the, to, to the room where I was and he had left, a, a of beer in my room. and I, I fashioned a, a knife.

from there and I remember starting cutting myself slowly and I felt like it slowly started to go deeper and deeper but I slowly started going into psychosis and I started to faint and going back into space. There was a signal for me to know that everything was okay. Once the light underneath the door of the room where I was kept, was…

There was no more light there. I knew that it was safe. knew that I can go to sleep. But that night, it was a different thing. That was it. That was the day I was going to die. As I started going through these moments of in and out psychosis, I started to hear ambulances. The noise that I associate with ambulances. And it started getting worse and kind of very loud.

After a while, I can hear the police, can hear kind of shouting towards, know, with one of those megaphones. And you can hear kind of there’s a lot of activity there. And then I passed out again and woke up and would count again. And as I was waking up, I can feel my chest was to the ground and I can feel like I see horses were breaking down, were breaking through the door and that started to vibrate in the ground. And as this was happening, can hear door by door they were breaking them and they were saying clear and clear and they were kind of just going, they were going through the rooms and then this guy just kind of breaks through the room of where I was kept and points a gun at me. And I remember this moment and I was so drugged and I just don’t, you know.

I got under the bed, I remember. I got under the bed and he said, come out of there, I’m going to help you. I did not speak any English. I did not know why I couldn’t have trust this man, but I trusted him. And as I came closer, I realized he was wearing a badge and he had SWAT and all of those things for the local police department. And that moment that I was taking out a girl from Columbia and a girl from China was also kept in the same house.

And we were literally just taking two miles away to the Mid City Police Department. And from there I went to the hospital. And life just became complicated from there. It just became a spiral. I went into the foster care system. And you have to understand the foster care system is not designed for me. It’s designed for you as citizens.

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (17:30)
But before I went into a shelter and then as the shelter we’re trying to figure out what was going on, Immigration Custom Enforcement or ICE came and picked me up and took me to a detention center in San Diego. And then they sent me down to Texas where I was then detained at a children detention center, unaccompanied minor children detention center. I passed about two to three months there.

It was a really difficult time because nobody there knew what had happened to me. The police didn’t know where I was. The police in Seattle and San Diego came too late by the time ICE had picked me up. So there was just a lot of miscommunications that led me to be ended up in the system for two months before I was sent back to California because at this point I already had become a ward of the state, at the state because I had experienced abuse, abandonment, and neglect, which is the confinement of the law for kids in foster care. then I had become a warden of the state, so I had to come back to California. And then I went into shelters, group homes, foster homes. mean, wow, you can imagine.

I mean, I was in 21 different placements, group homes, foster homes, shelters. I mean,anything, the whole system. I became really good at knowing the city because I was in so many group homes all over the city in San Diego. Such a really, really difficult to go through this but also to understand that the system didn’t know what to do with a boy who had experienced so much sexual abuse and there wasn’t a therapy and evidence-based practice that was specifically for boys who have experienced sexual assault, who had gone through all these complexities of trauma. Right, so there wasn’t that at that time, just in 2004. That was just four years after the passing of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which means that that was one of the first boys to actually go through the legal system to prosecute somebody for exploiting them, because at that time, there wasn’t yet a way for you to prosecute a trafficker. All of that experience, all of this time I was told that because of what happened to me, because I had been sexually assaulted so many times, there was no way for me that I wasn’t going to hurt somebody else. So as I was going through college, I decided that I wasn’t going to let that happen. And I went into psychology and behavioral health because in a way I wanted to catch myself before it became something bad. And it was really difficult because I absorbed what everybody thought about my trauma. And to today we think of boys and men as the perpetrator, not as a part of the solution, but also not as part of somebody who can get hurt or abused or hurt in a sexual way. But the statistic says one in six boys

Fight the New Drug (20:31)
Right.

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (20:38)
If you are in a classroom with more than six boys, at least one of them have experienced sexual assaults in this country. And we have, and that is not something that we constantly talk about. And I hope that today’s conversation can really bring a light that boys, men, have also experienced sexual violence and are also part of the solution to the challenge. So I went to school, I became first a psychologist, then I became a behavioral psychologist, a behavioral neurologist, and clinical psychologist, just with the whole idea of really helping victims. I wanted to use both that personal experience to say, can, a lot of therapists dream with the idea of saying, I can only, that they can associate, can feel the same pain somebody else has felt.

And I can say that because I have that experience. And I’m not just their psychologist or therapist. I’m also their peer. And that really makes, bonds us, and creates a very unique opportunity for me. So over the last 20 years, I have worked with over…

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (21:59)
2,750 victims of trafficking anywhere from direct support. Right now, primarily my work is in providing mental health support, specialized mental health support, but also to do their psychological evaluations to be presented in court, to defend their claim or to be presented in court to have a restitution charges or restitution amount, we said, or if a victim is applying for a T visa.

I can offer a psychological evaluations and support of their TV set. So life has been interesting. Life hasn’t been easy, but it has been, has given me lot of opportunities to give back in my society. I have the very unique opportunity also to be the chair of the United Nations Fund for Contemporary Forms of Slavery in Human Trafficking, where I have the very unique opportunity to work across the world in developing and funding programs to support victims of human trafficking, but also victims of contemporary forms of slavery across the world. I mean, will tell you, around two years ago, I wouldn’t tell people that slavery was alive. But as I started to do this work internationally, you have to understand modern day slavery. It’s a term that now is used not only to encapsulate what’s historical forms of slavery, but also you have generation forms of slavery in Mali and what’s called the Sahel region, Mauritania, Mali, those are countries where are plagued with severe forms of human trafficking, which is of contemporary forms of slavery. So through this work,

I now have a very unique opportunity to balance my work across multiple entities, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and their Human Rights Defenders Program. I think that was a long introduction to your question, but I wanted to give you some context of who I am and where I come from.

Fight the New Drug (24:03)
Yeah, well, I’m so grateful and I just want to take a moment to express how honored I am that you’re here with us to share your experience so that other people can learn about this. You are, you know, uniquely positioned and that you have experienced so much that is worse than many people could ever imagine experiencing in one lifetime. And also, unfortunately, there are too many other stories of individuals who have and are experiencing similar things and so I’m so grateful that you’re willing to share this with us to help bring awareness and attention to this. So many individuals don’t know that this exists, right? And hearing from individuals like yourself who have experienced this, especially where as you pointed out, societally we do not often consider men and boys ⁓

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (24:50)
Yes.

Fight the New Drug (25:02)
individuals who can be harmed by this, can be victims of this, but also part of the solution. And I am so honored and grateful to be able to have this conversation with you and for our listeners to be able to learn from you and for your experiences. I can only imagine it’s difficult every single time that you share that despite that you’re integrated into this work and spending so much of your time in these spaces, it still can’t be easy to dig back into.

Fight the New Drug (25:31)
some of the most horrific things that you’ve experienced in your lifetime. So I want to thank you for being willing to do that with us and have this conversation with me so that we can help, you know, make progress on these issues and move the needle forward and find real solutions that our listeners and so many members of this movement can be part of the solution and fighting for this change. So thank you.

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (25:56)
Absolutely.

Fight the New Drug (25:58)
I want to ask, what do you wish more people understood about the realities of trafficking based on what you’ve experienced firsthand?

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (26:06)
Absolutely, Number one is that human trafficking, it’s often the tip of the iceberg when it comes to working with survivors of human trafficking. I’m using tip of iceberg because it’s, you know, what’s called polyvictimization. What are the pillars that really puts that person being almost like a silver platter here? To be exploited for lack of better language. But that’s the reality, right? Like that’s, if you look at sexual violence, sexual assault, gender-based violence, but also the lack of resources in our community, lack of parental assistance, lack, there is just so much of that, but then that leads into challenges like, you, like we said, sexual violence, also issues in the community, behavioral health challenges, which can often even lead into incarceration, which itself, it’s its own form of putting people at higher risk of exploitation. But then in children in America, we have what’s called the adverse childhood experiences model, which allows us to kind of, to, to model what are the experiences people have as early in their life and how those kind of impact them in adulthood. So we know that the higher level of adverse childhood experiences people had in their young age, the higher the vulnerability they have to be exploited. So there is all of these societal issues that we need to understand that just focusing on trafficking itself.

It’s not the full answer, but it’s also going back. And I want to invite your listeners, Like become CASAs, Court Appointed Special Advocates. That’s one way that you can have a direct impact on a mentor, a kid in foster care who is disproportionately more at risk of exploitation of human trafficking than any other children group in America. I’m going to say that again. You can become a Court Appointed Special Advocate, and become a mentor for a foster kid. There’s 500,000 kids in foster care, right? So then you are making a very specific impact that is reducing people’s vulnerability to trafficking at a very early age before they’re exploited. So, and I think that that’s when we as a society can act on and be very, very connected is by, you have the ability to become a foster parent, become a foster parent. Kids in foster care need you, As a former foster youth, needed you, Primarily if you have the ability to become a foster parent for teenagers. Teenagers any age over 12 years old in foster care, they are unadoptable. We’re not put up for adoption. You won’t see us in their websites. You won’t see us at their adoption parties. You will see kids under the age of 12 because they’re adoptable. We are not. At least in the age range to which I was during the time that I was in foster care. So that’s what I wish you to know.

And that’s what I wish that everybody took from today’s conversation is the trafficking is the tip of the iceberg. And we as a society can have very specific impact if we went down to the root causes, become a mentor, become a foster parent, become involved in your society, vote properly and I don’t want to go political, but you if you’re voting not only for yourself, but also voting for community members and their ability to get help in society based on that. So if you care for human trafficking victims, vote like you mean it. So, and that’s for everything, right? If you care about having parks and having parks in the country, like vote like you mean it. And if you care for victims of exploitation, vote like you mean it. So yes.

Fight the New Drug (30:13)
Right.

And in some context, certainly relevant cultural context alongside this is looking at immigration, right? As one of these pieces of this puzzle, part of your journey involved navigating complex immigration systems after surviving trafficking. How did that shape the way that you think about protecting vulnerable individuals, especially those who are seeking asylum?

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (30:22)

Absolutely, you know, I am very very fortunate right now to be a US citizen and that’s because the United States government conquers and you know and especially in 2000 and then 2004 and every year since then has reauthorized what’s called the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and as part of that access that if you have experienced a severe form of human trafficking and can and have reported that to the police and have worked with the police to prosecute that case, then you can submit an application to get what’s called a T visa. And then four years with that TV, two years with that TV set, then you can apply for a green card or, know, and that green card is usually for 10 years. After five years, I was able to apply for citizenship. And as today, you know, I am very fortunate to do that. And to be the, because as,

You know, America embraced me at a very difficult time in my life. And it’s very difficult because I get emotional, but America embraced me at a very difficult time in my life. They could have sent me back. could have, you know, everything that perhaps you’re hearing today, right? Like I wasn’t perhaps welcome or perhaps somebody in my experience may not be welcome, but the reality is this, you know, people seeking asylum.

And knowing the world, knowing what is it to live in Honduras, what is it to live in Mali or Mauritania and all of these countries where I experienced civil war Yeah, I got emotional because I really see myself as a very fortunate to have my green card, to have a US citizen. And I recently was in Vienna at the United Nations Office of Drug and Crime Enforcement in Vienna, Austria doing a presentation, doing some work on a global forum. And I was very worried coming back from having to go through security. And I was very fortunate that I had my US passport, I had everything with me, and I was just waved through. And that made me feel just so strong. I have nothing to worry about. I had everything that I Yet that’s the anxiety that’s causing and producing a lot of people.

Fight the New Drug (32:52)
Right.

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (32:57)
But it’s just producing a lot of people not to report their crime, right? Like victims of crime, crime doesn’t just happen to US citizens or green card holders, it also happens to immigrants in the country. And I believe that there should be assistance that allow them to make their claim forward. And I mean, we can tell that out of the 5,000 applications that the government may receive for a T visa, only 1,250 may be approved. So there is a lot of regulations that apply some of that and getting a T visa, it does feel like a gift and it is a gift. And now I’m married to have two kids, which is, very fortunate to have created my life here in the US and to have had my kids be born in the US.

Fight the New Drug (33:54)
Thank you for sharing that perspective with us. Your work spans so many areas, behavioral health, human rights advocacy, education, and policy. How do you find yourself working across so many different fields and how do they all connect in your mission?

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (33:55)
A long time ago, I had to commit myself into what my values are. Where do I stand as a human? And I found that the human rights framework that allows for you and I to have a life free from exploitation, free from abuse, free from, to have a childhood free from a childhood abuse, from even adverse childhood experiences to go to school. All of those, I think that those are a baseline that all as human, we should have access to. I really think that it’s at the very minimum that we should not hurt each other, at the very minimum. So when it comes to, last year there the celebration of the 75 years of the human rights declaration by the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva. I had the opportunity to interview him about the forum and now it has been 75 years from the first time in history that we have now put what we believe to be the rights in paper. But yet, I will tell you, yet we don’t say, you have the right to housing.

We don’t have the rights to all of the other things. that’s big. And that perhaps even gets political, even right. The right to health care, right? Like all of those things that I think is important that we should have. And we have seen clear examples from other nations that have free health care access, that their people are better, they’re healthier, and they have experienced trauma at a lower level, at a lower level because their basic necessities are already met.

What you now have to meet is the complexity of their trauma. That’s very important because I can’t do that with a patient in the US because they may be homeless, they may not have health insurance, they may not have work to do. So all of those experiences with a European client, I don’t have to worry about those because there are social networks that exist there. So I found myself working across these networks because as a child, I experienced, I would say, the worst of humanity. The worst that humanity had to offer me. from, even unfortunately, my biological father not being a safe, supportive person. I have 57 scars in my body. All of them are scars that my father left. Every single one of them.

Each of them had their own stories. And when I became an adult, I had to commit to something, right? Like my principles and I often, I feel that it’s difficult because most people don’t do this. Like do this exercise of like committing to who I am as a human and what I want the world around me to look like. And I invite, you your listeners to commit to themselves, to commit to their communities, to commit to others, to commit to their life, to commit to their partners, to commit to what you have to offer because that is the only way we as a society will get forward

So when I found myself in the middle of of this, I founded the Human Rights Network and the Human Rights Declaration. I invite all of you listeners to pick up the Human Rights Declaration online.

And to get through it, right? Like you will see that you did at the very basic, this is a baseline that allows us all to say this is what we can agree on. And not all countries agree on. We are even in the country where we we agree to some of those, some of those principles, but not all of them because some of them are becoming too politically attached. So all of them are one to me.

Fight the New Drug (38:10)
Yeah. And I mean, you make such an important point that so often so many of these these things are made political. But it’s not political when it was your lived experience, right? You weren’t thinking of the politics one way or another. You needed a compassionate response to to as a young child to have the resources you needed to be able to get out of the system that you didn’t choose to be in. Right.

And so I think it’s important for all of us in these conversations to take a step back and to try to remove politics for a second. Of course, that’s impossible to do across the board and legislation is an important part of solving these issues, but to take a step back and have that compassionate approach and look at the way that real human beings are being negatively impacted by…

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (38:55)
Mm-hmm.

Fight the New Drug (39:06)
these issues and what can we do to create a positive change? I think that’s an important place to start. So much of your work centers around supporting survivors of trafficking and exploitation. And from your experiences, what are some of the most important things people should understand about the healing process from this kind of trauma?

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (39:28)
The reality is that for too long, we have said that healing process from trauma or from mental health or even from health, it was your own independent job because you had to get better. It was your mind. But the reality is that societies around the world do not exist without having some form of, I mean, the Maori people in New Zealand for Arawatoa have a very specific way, for example, that they approach health. They don’t see it as different between mental health and physical health. They see it as at all, as all. And when they prescribe, they may prescribe you 20, 30 minutes of time walking or 20, 30 minutes and seeing your best friend because they see that people, it’s the best way that we can, you know, that we can get better. Peer, right? Seeing yourself reflective, you know, If I can see somebody get better and I say, wait, hold on, I can also get better.

Then, you know, then there’s a practice and they have to go. Healing also, think, and the most, the most serious part, that healing is, it’s not a linear process; healing is not a today tomorrow thing. It’s a lifelong commitment. I don’t know a single person who has healed. And that doesn’t mean that they are not better, that they’re not good, living a good life, that they’re not enjoying everything the world has to offer them.

But that means that they understand that the trauma will be with me in one way or another. Trauma is stored in your brain and your spine and your stomach and almost in your throat and everywhere part of your body. People who experienced trafficking 20 years ago are now having physical…perhaps symptoms of response of their trauma. I am in a wheelchair. A couple of years ago, four years ago now, I had a surgery that went wrong. But during my trafficking experience, I was beaten several times. And one of them, could, I felt my body go wrong from there. And since then and through my time at foster care and to become an adult, had my surgeries.

I had three surgeries that I thought they would fix me and then at the end of the day they left me in the wheelchair. This is important because, but if I had known these, I would have taken better care of myself. Honestly, I would have, but I think that trauma had been such a thing that was still developing and learning and education that we didn’t know yet the trauma had that long-term aspect and it comes out in that way. But now we know. So now we can advise people, live a healthy life, walk at least 30 minutes a day.

I invite you to walk.

Fight the New Drug (42:35)
Yeah, thank you for that reminder. I think sometimes when we have these conversations, especially for individuals who haven’t experienced this firsthand, we can kind of be removed from the true impact of something, not only when someone is in the situation, surviving a situation of trafficking or sexual abuse or domestic violence or anything related, but then, you know, the, vast array of impacts that follow that for years to come. And I think it’s important to remember that trauma is something that whether someone’s experienced trauma from sexual abuse or trafficking in this way or trauma from something else in their lives, these things are all interconnected, right? They can have effects on us long-term and finding the way through. It’s so helpful to have advice like this and to be able to have these reminders to…that all of us can do something about it if we can get out and have some sunlight and do some of these basic things, though that won’t heal everything, of course, and that won’t take care of everything, but it can help. And having systems in place that support good healthcare and good access to resources that support these things is a great way to help provide the resources we really need to get out of these situations.

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (43:42)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Fight the New Drug (43:59)
You’ve you talk about, you you focus on a lot of innovative approaches to behavioral health. What kinds of approaches or therapies have you seen make the biggest difference for survivors?

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (44:12)
Yeah, you know, this came out about during my master’s program and I was going to behavioral health or psychology. And I realized, and I went to school again, reminded, right, that I thought I was going to become something bad. So I had to kind of catch myself something before that. But I will tell you, I mean, two years into my school, I realized that what happened to me doesn’t determine how I’m going to live my life. And then I learned that evidence-based practices, which are like current way that we provide behavioral health services to people who have experienced trauma are old. We’re working with systems from 1990s. I was born in 1990, so I know it’s plenty of old enough to have the need to be updated, the way even I realize.
Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (45:04)
The way that I experienced trafficking in 2004 is not the same way people are experiencing trafficking today. Why would I be using 2004 solutions and 2025? You can’t. It doesn’t fit. So we have to evolve in the way that we think. However, what’s difficult is that the treatment of trauma is primarily done within the clinical setting.

And everything that has to be clinical has to adhere by certain policies and rules that regulates the way and do no harm and with a practical, by the or statistical manual and all of those things that really create a complex systems that is very difficult to navigate. So I started looking at evidence-based, at innovative practices or kind of or evidence practices that were yet be in platforms such as like the American Psychology Institute or anything like that, because they’re very specific and focused to the crime and to the trauma they have experienced. But then we were able to see, we can then treat complex trauma, and that is not only in trafficking, but also can happen in DV. It can happen in any other aspect, right? I mean, just having it,

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (46:27)
a car accident multiple times, that can be complex trauma. Right? Like, so there’s, there’s the very interesting aspect that innovative approaches are the only way that we can, that we can have solutions for 2025. I have found that some evidence-based practices like cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy is a very specific therapy that allows us
to focus specifically on the symptoms and the root causes to their PTSD or trauma, right? Because often, again, trafficking is the root, is the tip of the iceberg, but then there are important challenges that people have to kind of get through in order for them to achieve well-being at the higher level.

Fight the New Drug (47:06)
Right.

Yeah.

Fight the New Drug (47:21)
Thank you for sharing

Fight the New Drug (47:22)
What advice would you give to people who want to better support survivors of sexual exploitation and trafficking in their own communities?

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (47:26)
Absolutely. I really want folks to not overthink the solution. That’s very important because at the end of the day, what we need is human connection and human interaction.

If they want to create or if they want to be part of the solution to really

be mindful of like, what are the systems that are causing the challenges you’re trying to address and how you tackle those systems. Right, for example, if you want to pass a legislation in your state, right, or, and really work with your state to ensure that the legislation is passed through, but also, I mean, pass it through survivors. As survivors, what are their needs? The needs of survivors in my community in Washington state may be different than the people in your state or other states in the community. So get connected. Connect with the National Survivor Network or NSN, nationalsurvivornetwork.org. They are an organization completely run by survivors of human trafficking who are doing amazing work advocating for survivors of trafficking. If you ever wanted to do a public speaking event and you want to bring a survivor, they also have people who can, you know, come out and do education programs. There’s another group that I recommend that primarily in the UK, but Survivor Alliance, another group, know, because another good way for you to get connected and to know what they’re good work that they’re doing. Do not become a generalist, become a specialist. Right, like do, I think folks tend to overthink the solution with that.

But if they just focus on one thing, what are you really good at and how can you partner with others? You do not have to provide housing, health, dental, physical, no. But you can provide housing, that’s the, know, and then you partner with somebody who will do the other things. So become a specialist at what you do and then partner with others rather than creating multiple systems that they’re just, that perhaps will create more space for people to get lost in.

Fight the New Drug (49:40)
Yeah, that’s really beautifully said and I think very encouraging and a good reminder that there are a lot of people doing a lot of good work in these spaces and to look at what’s out there and find what you can best connect with and what you can best offer with the strengths and the resources that you have. And thank you for sharing those resources as well. You know, another key part of your work, which you mentioned already, but involves addressing the systems.

Fight the New Drug (50:07)
and industries that fuel exploitation. And in our work, we often focus on how pornography is fueling sexual exploitation. And that’s part of the conversation in your work as well. From your perspective as an expert on gender-based violence, can you talk about the impact pornography has on this issue in particular?

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (50:07)
Yeah, the impact of pornography, I think, can be measured in different ways. I think if you measure it as porn, it being a symptom for a larger issue, right? Like often folks, and perhaps that’s what I invite folks to think about as porn as a symptom, too often the lack of education, lack of information, abuse at young age can also lead to misunderstanding of sexuality and all of that. So people may use porn as an avenue to think about, to get education, to learn about sex, to learn about those things that you should have learned home, right?

They’re learning about sex and all sorts of things about sex in a context where it’s hyper sexualized.

It’s very male pleasure driven. It’s never about female pleasure, right? So then there is often these, or at least what most porn is, right? Like it’s about ejaculation, not about the woman fulfilling her needs, right? So there’s there’s your mentality. It does contribute to harm though. I will say that 100%.

Fight the New Drug (51:34)
Yeah.

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (51:39)
And not only because they are a visual learning aspect that gives people the wrong idea about what sex is and what it’s not. It is healthy to have sex. It is not healthy to hurt others while having sex.

Right? So then there’s this mindset that folks need to address. But it’s really something to know that there is real world harm and porn.

Pornography itself, it’s an issue because it kind of preys on people that may be on need, right? Whether if it is men or women who have, you know, social needs or have sexual needs or have financial needs, right? Like they preys on that and it gives the platform for potential exploitation.

And that’s the hard part too, right? Because some of my patients may pursue porn as an outlet.

And so how do I create that space for my patients who say, porn is kind of my outlet to do it, but then my job is to change the outlet to a more positive outlet, right? So I think that part of your movement has to also be, has to almost replace porn with something, an outlet the community needs.

Right? Whether if it is a lost mass campaign about sex and how it works and know, really like replace PornHub with a website where people can go and get like sexual education. Right? Like that, but it has to be clever. It has to be other ways because that’s the way that people today and are seeking information about sex is different. And you can see it in the way that TikTok is made, right? Like people who are

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (53:34)
Before, know, we could hear some sexual terms and people when they’re 16, 18 years old, but now we’re them as early as 12. So that was a long answer to your question.

Fight the New Drug (53:45)
No, it’s great though, because it is really a complex issue. We talk about this from every angle because there are so many angles and they’re all relevant. know it’s not if it’s when young people will be exposed to pornography and the age of exposure is getting increasingly younger. And it’s completely normal and natural for kids to.

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (53:53)
Mm-hmm.

Fight the New Drug (54:05)
have be curious about sex and to have questions about sex. And if they’re not adequately prepared and their support systems are not adequately prepared to be the ones answering their questions, they are going to search them in the place that they search for answers to everything else. Right. So it’s not just, you know, removing porn and saying porn is the problem. And if we just remove it, everything will be better. But it is looking at, you know, why does porn exist in the first place? What are people seeking out with pornography? And then and then why are

Fight the New Drug (54:34)
and how are we pushing people to stay stuck in the cycle of consuming something that we know for so many people develops as a coping mechanism, but then becomes a compulsive habit because of the way that it’s designed. And so looking at how can we remove shame from the conversation? How can we break the taboo so that we can have productive dialogue about this and educate people to know, as you mentioned, there could be healthier things to replace pornography.

And you did address this just slightly, but you know, some people believe that pornography is just fantasy and doesn’t contribute to real world harm.

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (55:10)
Okay.

Fight the New Drug (55:11)
and I think that’s where this issue does get so complicated because as you mentioned, even if there was a way that we could say all porn is ethically produced, which we cannot say that, there’s not a way to guarantee that, right? But even if we could, there’s still research to show all of the ways that it does promote the harms that you mentioned, including dehumanizing people and objectifying people and affecting our perceptions and attitudes toward other people and

Fight the New Drug (55:40)
perpetuating, you know, stereotypes that can be harmful. And so that piece is complicated, but the piece that is also relevant to the conversation we are having about trafficking is that we know there is a lot of harm in the production of pornography. We know that individuals are exploited and trafficked into pornography and not all pornography, of course, but there is a lot of pornography that does involve force, or coercion, which, as you mentioned earlier, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.

Fight the New Drug (56:10)
does identify as sex trafficking or with individuals under the age of 18, which so often, know, younger and younger looking people are what is promoted in pornography. we know many children are exploited through pornography. So it is something that’s, you know, so multifaceted. And I don’t say any of this to shame anyone who has consumed pornography, but it is something that’s an issue worth addressing to say.

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (56:12)
Yes.

Fight the New Drug (56:36)
You know, some people want to consume it only as fantasy, but unfortunately there are other pieces of this where other people are being harmed and exploited that we can’t ignore. And we have to look at all of the pieces.

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (56:46)
Yeah, and I even invite listeners or even those who have consumed pornography like what are you trying to

Fight the New Drug (56:55)
Yeah, and I want to, I appreciate this conversation so much and I do also want to go back to shame just for a moment. We’ve mentioned, you know, how shame is problematic in this fight against these issues throughout this, but can you speak a little bit to what role shame plays in driving people toward compulsive behaviors like pornography, but other things as well?

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (57:02)
Yes. Shame is a learned behavior. You learned it. You learned it from somebody. It usually comes from your infancy. It comes from the time, from the way you stay. And shame actually is learned in many ways. But let me give you an example. It’s like, let’s say you have a fear of dogs and you are walking down the street with your daughter and you see a dog coming next
coming directly to you. What did you do? You grab your daughter and cross the street. Why did you just teach them? Dogs are scary when crossing the street, right? So it’s a learned behavior. So when it comes to shame, it’s something they want to be tackled as we understand our individuality and what makes us, right?

Shame is your, it’s your nervous system, way of telling you something is up, right? So that I don’t feel that place that I, that you don’t feel a place where you are because it’s outside what you feel comfortable with outside of where your box is. Your box often defines where shame ends and what shame begins. And your box is designed by culture, by your family, by your needs, and by all that. And often, you see, if your box does not include talking about sex, your box would then include porn. If your box does not include about safety, sex, and information sharing, and learning about sexual education, or if you don’t have good family interactions, or somebody who give you good access to information than porn will replace that role. Porn doesn’t have to be the only thing that they replace them. And that is where other people, like other information can come handy to replace porn. However, I think as a society, we need to address the larger issue that sex is normal, sex is, but what is not is violence. Like sex is normal; being violent or hurting someone doing sex is not normal. As you continue to express that, I mean, shame is something that you battle with as you go through life, yet there’s ways that if you can build on your principles, like the more clear you are in your values, principles, and that will give you the set, the onset, the baseline to which you can say, like I don’t need, I don’t say need porn, but often folks will say that they need porn because there is a need that they’re fulfilling. What is that, often that need is, it’s not only even just the sexual need, but it’s often, you know, could be childhood trauma, could be depression.

You know, even having sex could be a they’re 30 minutes of right? Like could be those things and it is healthy, but it’s not healthy again when someone is being hurt. And that is where shame lives. And that very kind of need not even need balance of what is my box and how is my box comprised of information or misinformation and how that leads me into seeking porn or into seeking sexual education outside the home. I do think that sexual education starts at home, goes into school, goes into college, then that gives us a good foundation so that as adults we can set our values however we would like them and then not deal with shame as we go through life’s, life’s experiences.

Fight the New Drug (1:01:23)
Yeah, that’s beautifully said. And you know, I want to ask with everything you have experienced, and it’s clear you’ve made so many very conscious choices to pursue the path that you’re on now and to lead with the values that you have. But even with the very hopeful place you operate from, you’ve experienced some of the most difficult things and you’re working with individuals who you’re regularly hearing some of the most difficult, unimaginable things.

Fight the New Drug (1:01:53)
What gives you hope to keep going? What gives you hope for the future? What hope can you provide, you know, our listeners who are hearing this as well?

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (1:01:59)
Yeah, absolutely. I… It’s hard because like I have two kids and I want them to see the world as this beautiful, enchanting place where their whole experiences are kind of come through and they can build. you know, I worked on perhaps on humanity’s greatest shame.

It’s really exploitation of exploiting each other. That is our greatest shame in our lives. What keeps me going honestly, it’s hope that I can change it. That I can change it. That I can have one minimal impact. But it’s also trust that my fellow community members like you, you know, everyone. I mean, I can name every single person on this planet I honestly I really believe that that trust in you is what makes me hopeful right like trusting in you and seeing that you know while 10 20 30 people in my life have hurt me hundred more have told me have have loved me right like I was I was adopted as an adult by my one of my foster parents.

And today they’re my parents. They have seen me through a lot, through good, through bad. I was 19 years old when they adopted me. And I will tell you, it’s amazing, right? I they saw this kid, this immigrant kid who has been abused a lot, who had experienced a lot of trauma, and yet they chose to offer me love unconditionally.

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (1:03:44)
That, that makes me. Yhat makes me. That, that really builds me. It’s that love that they gave me.

Fight the New Drug (1:03:49)
Yeah, that’s such a beautiful perspective and I want to thank you for sharing that with us. I think just the constant reminders through this entire conversation of, you know, our humanity and that we are all here and we all have the ability to leave this place better than we found it and to provide something better for the generations that are to come. And it does take every one of us and all of our voices to choose that and to choose love and to choose trust and to choose to move forward in this way. So I just, really want to thank you for that. Such a beautiful perspective.

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (1:04:21)
Thank you, thank you. I appreciate you for taking more time with me today. You have a very strong platform, Natale.

I think that it’s important and you all are using it in a really really amazing way to create positive change and I can feel it that each of your listeners and people who watch you on YouTube and everywhere feel inspired and perhaps I want to leave them with two things that I think are humanity’s greatest gift and that we do not use them enough.

And that is our ability to be, to care, just care for people. I care for you, I care for me, I care for everything. And if we just care for the people who are being hurt, abandoned, neglected, children and foster care, children who been separated at the border, people who are being arrested at the street without no concept of law. Like all of these things are like they require care. They require a level of humanity like you said.

Be about you, love what you have, but also care about me and others who have come to this country not to make it bad, but to make it great, to make it better. Right? It’s not to say that it wasn’t good before. It’s to say there’s always room for improvement. The last thing I will say, go with life with grace. Grace is the most, it’s the greatest gift. If you show up with grace, you show up full.

You show up with so much more than anybody can give you is the greatest gift. Do not assume that I mean something bad by what I said or perhaps don’t assume that somebody is coming to you because they have something. Grace is such a beautiful feeling. The grace to yourself. Be graceful with yourself. Give yourself that moment, that time to sit down and understand this is what I need. This is what I’m seeking, whether if it is in porn, whether if it is in other addictive behaviors, or anything else that is challenging your life. Be graceful to yourself. Go there, but go there with grace.

Fight the New Drug (1:06:45)
You’ve rendered me speechless. I want to thank you again so much, both for those beautiful words to end on and also for the time and capacity you’ve given us today. I know that this conversation matters and is important for our listeners to hear. And I hope it will spark additional conversations and additional action from those who care, from those who are part of this movement who can help us create change. So thank you so, so much. And for any of our listeners, if they want to learn more about you or any of the work that you do, is there anything else you wanted to share before we wrap up?

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (1:07:24)
Yes, please. I’m always around and happy to have any conversations folks may want to have. You can find me on LinkedIn by my name, Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman This conversation, think it will bring, hopefully it will spring a lot of emotions in you. Please take care of yourself, especially if you’re a boy and then after hearing me, you feel like you need to talk to somebody. Talk to somebody, ask the help and…hopefully you get what you need.

Fight the New Drug (1:07:57)
Thank I can’t tell you how grateful I am personally for this. So thank you. And I’m so glad that you exist in this world and that you are doing this work. And I can’t wait to continue to follow you and see what more you do. So truly, thank you.

Dr. Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (1:08:12)
Yes.

Kindly. Thank you so much. I appreciate your words and thank you all very much for having this conversation.